The end of an academic year is always a special time for all of us in higher education. Following a mad dash that involves grad week celebrations, conferral of degrees, annual reports and board meetings, we get to take a short break of reflection before we confront our ambitious summer to-do list, in preparation for another academic year.
This year, this season of reflection is especially poignant for me. This was my first year as Dean of GW Business. As with any new job, especially within a new institution, it takes a beat to find one’s footing. Commencement’s joy offers a fitting moment to reflect on the year’s accomplishments, as campus quiets and we say see you later to our newest graduates. Despite the challenges, there is much to celebrate.
If I can sum the year in one word, it would be “innovation.”
Innovation at GW Business meant new programs, new partnerships and a deliberate effort to get ahead of a world that is changing faster than any curriculum can keep up with.
Artificial Intelligence: A Mind Shift, Not a Productivity Hack
Our most significant structural investment this year was in artificial intelligence, which we approached not simply as a new set of tools but as a fundamental shift in how knowledge is created, applied and governed.
We launched a comprehensive AI initiative guided by the school’s first Chief AI Officer, Patrick Hall, whose work this year earned him the Dean’s Faculty Service Award. Under his leadership, the MSBA capstone was transformed into a high-impact AI Case Competition, where student teams pitched AI-driven solutions to executives from Capital One, EY, MITRE and Mizuho. Our AI initiative was built in concert with GW’s university-wide Trustworthy AI Initiative and supported by alumni through the GW Business Dean’s Innovation Fund.
To recognize the faculty and staff who have led quickly and thoughtfully in this space, we created the inaugural GW Business AI in Action Awards, highlighting work across research, teaching and operations.
This fall, we will launch the new Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence for Business, a degree designed to produce graduates who don’t just use AI, but design, deploy and manage it responsibly across organizations.
Faculty: Scholarship That Shaped Policy, Informed Practice and Advanced the Field
GW Business faculty had an exceptional year by any measure. The full list is too long to capture here, but here are a few highlights.
Professor Margaret Ormiston received the Dean’s Senior Faculty Research Award for her distinguished record of scholarly excellence and for securing one of the largest federally funded grants in GW Business history: a $2.7 million NIH award. Professor Miguel Lejeune was awarded an NSF grant of $549,000 for 2025–2028, and together with doctoral student Wenbo Ma, won the Best Paper Award from INFORMS’ Transportation Science and Logistics Society. Assistant Professor Chukwuma Dim received the Dean’s Emerging Scholar Award, having produced three top-tier publications while earning prestigious Crowell and Brattle Group honors and presenting at the NBER Big Data conference.
Associate Professor Vikram Bhargava’s work on the ethics of social media and adolescent attention was cited in a report delivered to the Governor of New Jersey and in an official policy paper from the French Treasury. Associate Professor Vontrese Pamphile was named one of Poets & Quants’ Best 40-Under-40 MBA. And Associate Professor Jin Hyung Kim received GW’s most prestigious teaching honor: 2026 Oscar and Shoshana Trachtenberg Prize.
Staff Service Award recipient Rochelle Rediang celebrated 30 years of service to the university, a milestone that says everything about the kind of community GW Business is.
New Programs, New Partnerships
Two new initiatives this year addressed economic impact. The Graduate Certificate in Affordable Housing equips students to examine the economics, policy and structural forces behind one of the country’s most persistent challenges and to develop rigorous, actionable frameworks for addressing it.
Our new partnership with the World Bank Group opened a formal pathway for students to apply their skills to complex global economic development challenges, with access to the bank’s events, presentations and internship pipeline.
We also rebooted the Dean’s Corporate Council, whose members work directly with the Fowler Career Center to provide employer insights that inform both student preparation and our understanding of current workforce needs. And we began building an Executive Leadership Forum of C-suite leaders and senior executives which provides a structured way to bring the school’s most accomplished alumni back into direct contact with our students and faculty.
Students: Extraordinary in the Classroom and Far Beyond It
This year’s graduating class distinguished itself in ways that went well beyond academic performance.
The inaugural cohort of our ACE triple degree program graduated this spring: 34 students who spent their undergraduate years studying at GW, Luiss University in Rome and Renmin University of China in Beijing, earning degrees from all three institutions.
Our Global MBA students traveled to the UAE, Argentina and South Africa for immersive business experiences. Other graduate students had immersions and treks to Morocco, Singapore, Buenos Aires and Milan. In Milan, 27 students volunteered at the 2026 Winter Olympics, gaining firsthand exposure to the logistics and leadership behind one of the world’s most complex events. Eighty-nine graduate students participated in short-term international programs across eleven countries.
On the competition front, undergraduate students earned second place, the highest finish in GW Business history, at Georgetown’s McDonough Business Strategy Challenge, the nation’s largest undergraduate nonprofit consulting competition. Our American Marketing Association chapter was one of eleven finalists out of 110 universities at the AMA International Collegiate Conference. And fourteen GW Business student ventures won over $100,000 at the GW New Venture Competition.
Alumni: Present, Invested, and Indispensable
Our alumni showed up this year in the ways that matter most: hiring our graduates, mentoring our students, funding scholarships and lending their networks and expertise to the school’s mission. We launched the Alumni Leadership Circle for our MBA graduates and expanded our alumni events to Silicon Valley, Florida and London. The connections being built through these efforts are making this school a stronger, more relevant place for everyone in it.
A Personal Note
I came to GW Business knowing it was a school of enormous potential with strong faculty, ambitious students, a remarkable location and a legacy of serious scholarship. From my very first days on campus, I was welcomed by colleagues, students, staff and alumni with a generosity of spirit that I did not take for granted then and do not take for granted now. Despite many challenges facing higher education, this community has made my first year not just productive, but genuinely rewarding. Thank you! Onward and upward GW Business!
Sevin Yeltekin
Dean, GW School of Business